The Detroit Red Wings can beat opponents in so many different ways. On Sunday, the game-winning goal in their 4-2 defeat of Boston was not a skill play by one of their many high-end talents, but a perfect feather pass from one fourth-liner to another: Patrick Eaves to Detroit mainstay Kris Draper.

Wild Enter the Playoff Picture

The two teams with the best record since the beginning of the calendar year are the Philadelphia Flyers and — you didn’t guess it — the Minnesota Wild. By taking both ends of a home-and-home series with the St. Louis Blues that concluded on Saturday, the Wild tied the Flyers with 13 wins in 2011. Minnesota is 9-2-1 in its last eleven games and is now in eighth place in the Western Conference.
For his game story after the Wild’s second win over St. Louis, Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune went around the locker room to find out how the team managed to turn around what had been a mediocre season.

“We’re starting to really come together,” defenseman Greg Zanon told Russo. “We’re owning our ice. Guys are stepping up for each other, and everybody’s got each other’s back. That’s what this team is all about.”

In 12 of their last 25 games, the Wild have held opponents to one goal or fewer. “We’re keeping it to the outside, the goalies are seeing all the pucks and obviously the goalies are playing well,” said defenseman Cam Barker. Said defenseman Clayton Stoner, “We have found our identity.”

Calgary Outdoor Game Not the “Consolation Classic”

Canadians have no reason to feel insecure about the Heritage Classic, featuring the Flames and Montreal Canadiens this Saturday at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. The event may not receive the hype of the Winter Classic played the last four years in the United States, but N.H.L. commissioner Gary Bettman is adamant that the game in Calgary is not merely a consolation prize for Canada.

“The first outdoor game was the Heritage Classic in Edmonton, and the fact that we managed to pull off a very clever promotional idea and move it into the United States in an available time slot on New Year’s Day has nothing to do with the importance of playing an outdoor game in Canada,” Bettman told George Johnson of the Calgary Herald.

“It’s not supposed to be the Winter Classic,” Bettman continued. “It’s supposed to be something else. The Winter Classic was principally driven by U.S. television, and so the purpose, the focus, the intent is different. The Winter Classic was something that was done to move the needle in the United States. Having said that, out of respect for the first game in Edmonton in 2003, and the fact that the game on New Year’s Day was intended for U.S. TV, we believed it would be good for our partners in Canada and most importantly for our fans in Canada to offer an outdoor game that everybody was telling me they wanted as well.”

Bettman does not know yet if there will be two outdoor games next season. After hosting three major events (including the All-Star Game) over the last two months, league executives will review and “figure out what makes sense,” said Bettman.

McGuire Blames Islanders’ “Predatory Behavior”

Strong reactions to the Islanders’ decision to “make it look mean” in their “Slap Shot” display while beating the Penguins on Friday continued into the weekend. Pittsburgh owner and president Mario Lemieux issued a statement that was highly critical of the Islanders and the league’s reaction to the brawling. NBC dedicated the first intermission of its broadcast of the Detroit-Boston game on Sunday to an analysis of whether the N.H.L. has spiraled out of control.

Analyst Pierre McGuire pointed the finger entirely at the Islanders for their role in the game that featured 15 fights and 346 penalty minutes. “What happened on Friday wasn’t about fighting,” said McGuire. “This was pre-meditated, predatory behavior. That’s why the league ruled as harshly and as quickly as they did. They did the right thing. Case in point: Trevor Gillies had six shifts for an average of 16 seconds per shift. That speaks to the pre-meditation. This is not about fighting in that situation. This is about an organization, the New York Islanders, that wanted to get their pound of flesh from the Pittsburgh Penguins. I’ll tell you one thing, the guy who was very lucky: Matt Martin. If Matt Martin hits Maxime Talbot in the neutral zone, that’s his Todd Bertuzzi moment. We do not want to go down that road again.”

McGuire’s partner on N.H.L. on NBC intermission segments, Mike Milbury, has been an advocate of fighting throughout his four-decade career as a player, coach, executive and broadcaster. But even Milbury acknowledged teams do not have to scrap to win.

“Fighting is not essential to winning,” Milbury said on NBC. “You’re looking at a team in the Detroit Red Wings, one of the best teams of the last ten years, and they don’t fight. Boston tried to fight them when they were on sort of a spirited buzz high after a big brawl high in Montreal (last week), and the Detroit players just put their hands down and said, ‘Not going to do it.’ (General Manager) Kenny Holland won’t waste his money on a guy who can’t play on the fourth line with good minutes. The Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last year with no fighting majors. Fighting is there because we like it. We like the violent part of it, whether we admit it or not.”

McGuire’s plan to reduce fighting includes cutting back lineups from 18 skaters per team to 17. “If you did that, you take away 30 different guys who are potentially the guys who start a lot of these problems,” said McGuire.

Save of the Weekend: Kari Lehtonen

On Friday, Dallas Stars goaltender Kari Lehtonen went post-to-post, did a split and made a glove save on Brent Seabrook that had the Blackhawks defenseman shaking his end.

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Slap Shot, the New York Times hockey blog, reports on the Rangers, the National Hockey League and anything that glides quickly across a frozen surface anywhere on the globe, from the snowy prairies of Saskatchewan to the frigid steppes of Russia and beyond, like, say, Phoenix.

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